Before he was a rebel, Asres Mare Damte was a lawyer. Today he fights for the Fano, a loose collection of groups taking on Ethiopia’s military in one of its most populous and powerful regions.

The conflict in Amhara has simmered largely out of sight, with access limited by authorities and insecurity. But a rare interview with Asres, deputy of an influential Fano faction, and others on the ground give a sense of its impact.

Ethiopia’s federal government has long been challenged to hold together a potent mix of ethnic groups and interests. Sometimes, as recently in the Tigray region, it explodes into war.

The Amhara, Ethiopia’s second-largest ethnic group, once dominated national politics. Many among the rebels want to see them in power again. But they also claim the Amhara are under attack, citing ethnic-based violence in parts of Ethiopia where they are a minority.

The extent of the Amhara fighting has been difficult to measure since the Fano emerged during anti-government protests in 2016.

Alliances in Ethiopia can be shifting. During the Tigray conflict, the Fano fought alongside Ethiopian forces. Afterward, angered by certain terms of the peace deal, the rebels turned against the federal government once again.

Before taking up arms, Asres said he coordinated peaceful demonstrations to protest the killing of Amharas. He was arrested twice and fled in 2022 after a third warrant was issued.

These days, he and fellow fighters live in fear of drone strikes by Ethiopian forces. He makes bullish, unverified claims.

“We have fought thousands of battles,” he told The Associated Press from Amhara’s Gojjam area, which has seen some of the heaviest battles. He claimed that the Fano control over 80% of Amhara, a mountainous region of over 22 million people, and has captured “many enemy troops.”

In a statement last month, Amhara’s deputy head of security said the government had “freed” 2,225 of Amhara’s 4,174 subdistricts. It was not clear how many more were under Fano control.

Fighting has escalated since mid-March, with the Fano launching an offensive across Amhara. The military has claimed it “crushed” the offensive and killed 300 Fano fighters, but reports of clashes persist.

Amhara’s large population has long created pressure to expand, and the ethnic group has claimed the western part of Tigray. The Fano and Amhara regional forces seized it during the Tigray conflict, but they were left out of peace negotiations. They were angered to learn that western Tigray’s fate might be left up to a referendum, which has not been held.

It is “not a genuine peace,” Asres said.

After several months of small-scale skirmishes, Amhara saw open rebellion in July 2023, when Fano groups launched a coordinated offensive and briefly seized control of several towns.

They retreated to the countryside and have waged a hit-and-run guerrilla campaign since then, setting up checkpoints on key roads and often entering major urban areas.

“One week you’re ruled by one, one week you’re ruled by the other,” said a mother of three in the southern town of Debre Markos, referring to the rebels and Ethiopia’s military. She spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The monitoring group ACLED recorded 270 battles between Fano and government forces between Oct. 27 of last year and Jan. 31, as well as over a dozen attacks targeting health facilities and doctors in Amhara since last April.

Residents and observers say some local officials have fled their posts for fear of assassination, while police struggle to maintain control.

The regional education office says over 3,600 schools across Amhara are closed, with many looted or damaged, depriving 4.5 million children of schooling. The government said 2.3 million people needed food aid in 2024, many in hard-to-reach areas.

“You can’t travel from one city to another safely. Work has stopped,” said Tadesse Gete, a barber based in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, but from North Gondar, one of the fighting’s hot spots. He said his family fled for safety.

Rights groups have accused Ethiopia’s military of abuses including extrajudicial killings, drone strikes against civilians and enforced disappearances of alleged Fano sympathizers. Human Rights Watch last year said it had documented attacks by Ethiopian soldiers and allied militias in at least 13 Amhara towns since August 2023.

The bloodiest known episode was in February 2024 in Merawi, 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Amhara’s regional capital, when Ethiopian troops went door-to-door rounding up and executing civilians following a Fano attack, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The state-appointed human rights commission said at least 45 civilians were killed.

“The Ethiopian authorities have taken no meaningful steps to hold perpetrators accountable,” said Haimanot Bejiga, a researcher for Amnesty International.

A government spokesperson denied the allegations at the time, saying “not only would civilians never be targeted, even surrendering combatants would not be killed.”

On March 31, soldiers rounded up and killed civilians in the town of Brakat after clashing with local forces, two witnesses told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

One described seeing soldiers killing four women. “They ordered them to kneel down and they shot them from behind,” he said. “After the soldiers left that area, I counted 28 dead bodies.”

The government has restricted access to Brakat and has not commented.

The government did not respond to AP questions. It has accused the Fano of “terrorizing the people”. But it has also formed regional peace councils, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last year said his government had been in talks for “a while” with Fano groups.

They have not made significant progress. Abiy has said the rebel’s diffuse structure and lack of a coherent leadership has made negotiating difficult.

The Fano continues to draw recruits from disillusioned Amhara youth and from soldiers deserting the military. They include 25-year-old Andrag Challe, who believes that joining the rebellion is the only way to protect the Amhara and bring political change to Ethiopia.

The military “serves the interests of the ruling party,” not the people, he said.